"This is the story of Isobel; she was born in a forst by a spark, and as she grew up, she realized that the pebbles on the foret floor were actually skyscrapers. And by the time she was a grown-up woman and the skyscrapers had taken over the forest. She found herself in a city, and she didn't like all the people there so much, because they were a bit too clever for her."

Isobel was written by Björk, Nellee Hooper and Marius De Vries, and the lyrics were made by Sjón - his very first songlyric in fact. Nellee Hooper and Björk produced it together, and released it in 1995 on Björk's second album "Post". To direct this video, Michel Gondry was once again called in for his unique visual style.

→ Sjón's homepage
→ Nellee Hooper profile at allmusic.com
→ Michel Gondry videography

QUOTE

There's an epic continuity between 'Human Behaviour', 'Isobel' and 'Bachelorette'. I'm not sure if it's a joke or serious - probably a bit of both. It's basically a character I invented called Isobel.

In 'Human Behaviour', she's a little girl. In 'Isobel', she moves to the big city and big lights. She functions with her intuition wich isn't very good in cities and crashes with a lot of ill-behaved people. So she goes back and trains a lot of moths and sends them back, as messengers of intuition, into the city to people who are not working with their intuition. In 'Bachelorette' she takes over and trees grow over the city. It's part autobiography part storytelling.

There's a side to me that's really casual and that's in them. There's a side to me that's very dramatic and very romantic and there's a side to me that's pretty hardcore. I guess the line of songs were meant to be like an epic, 19th Century novel but at the same time taking the piss. I can be a little too dramatic at times.

REVIEW

For her third Gondry video, Björk retreats back into nature. The story is about a girl named Isobel, a character invented by Björk and her friend when they were children.

According to Björk, Isobel was born in the forest. After the pebbles turned to skyscrapers, she ends up a grown woman living in the city with only instinct as her guide. Isobel dances naked on tables and falls in love with all the wrong people and causes pain. “So she escaped and isolated herself,” explains Björk. “That's why she's called Isobel and not Isabel.””

The video is a black-and-white lyrical narrative, which includes these and other elements. Varying exposures, lighting effects, and a monochromatic schema make the video look similar to an early film. Similar to “Human Behaviour”, Isobel is the story of multiple persons represented by one Björk. Person One: Isobel weaves and composes this world and this story on her organ. Person Two: the story of Isobel is a tangled web indeed, as she is born “from the tiniest spark.” Isobel hides many secrets in her isolation. Her world is unique and primal. Tiny bi-planes are moths. Ants run around the city like people.

Water is the primary feature in her world. Gondry uses water as a dreamy transition tool between scenes. Like many Gondry videos, Isobel’s different realities blur, calling each world and reality into question.

QUOTE

This is the story of Isobel; she was born in a forst by a spark, and as she grew up, she realized that the pebbles on the foret floor were actually skyscrapers. And by the time she was a grown-up woman and the skyscrapers had taken over the forest. She found herself in a city, and she didn't like all the people there so much, because they were a bit too clever for her.

She decided to send to the world, all these moths, that she had trained to go and fly all over the world and go inside windows of people's houses -- the ones that were too clever -- and they'd sit on their shoulder and remind them to stop being clever and start to function by their instincts. They do that by saying "Nah-nah-nan-nah-nah!" to them... (Björk waves a finger infront of her face)

...and then they'd say "Oh! Sorry! I was being all clever there!", and start functioning on instinct.

QUOTE

It's the story of a girl that grows in the middle of the brazilian florest while baby-buildings becomes sky-scrapers. Then suddenly, she see's herself in a whole town full of crafty people. Then she asks for a moth to help so the insect goes cover the mouth of these people.

INTERVIEW

The work on Homogenic is actually simple. A lot of her rhythm loops are very contemporary, so before I attempted to write things on top of them I decided to write underneath, on her vocals, rather than to fight or add to the rhythm. Writing over the beat means writing a new line that's not in the song, something that will stick out-a high violin part, for instance. But when you write a melody that's already there, or chords in the low or mid range as pads, that's writing under.

In some of the songs I followed her secondary vocal lines; there was very little harmony and very few chords. I was doing that on 'Isobel' too, where I wrote a natural C in a line that was in B minor. Much later on I learned that Björk is the type of singer who will sing the A sharp in A minor, but I wasn't yet aware that she did that when I did that first song. It's just something I felt about her.

Deodato's old-fashioned pencil-on-paper approach blends nicely with the sample-churning techniques his younger colleagues embrace. Rather than diminish his contribution, both he and Björk feel that his traditional skills make him all the more valuable - and exotic - a commodity.

That's where I shine, because all most people can do these days is program their drum machines and sequencers. They will take samples from television, which they have already heard from other movies; that's just rewriting, not writing. Sure I can sample but nothing ever beats the real thing. He looks up to the cloudless sky, stretching his arms wide.

I'm here, Sitting in the sun, with beautiful mountains and this incredible view, in the company of Björk and all these musicians. I can't sample that. Then he looks our way and winks. But I can compose it.